National Senior Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow, The Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows
Principal Fellow, The Higher Education Academy, UK

Format: Seminar

Workshop Overview:

The development of employability—students’ abilities to negotiate the graduate labour market—is the responsibility of educators, students and leaders; however, teachers are by far the most important and influential people in students’ higher education experience. This workshop addresses how to overcome limited time, expertise and resources to develop employability within the existing curriculum. This workshop, delivered by leading expert Professor Dawn Bennett, positions employability development as the cognitive and social development of students as capable and informed individuals, professionals and social citizens using the validated Literacies for Life (L4L) measure. The workshop engages participants in a socio-cognitive self-assessment profile and follows with resources and strategies to embed employABILITY within existing programs and courses. The workshop will suit teachers, program leaders, curricular designers, senior managers and careers advisors. No prior expertise or experience is required. Participants will leave the workshop equipped and ready to embed employability thinking and the research-enabled tool into classes. In this workshop, the participants has gained:

Access to the online self-assessment profile tool for students;

Resources and career stories for use with students; and

Opportunities to engage in scholarship and educational research that flow from students’ responses and engagement.

About the Speaker:

Dawn Bennett is John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Creative Workforce Initiative with Curtin University in Australia. Dawn is a leading expert on the development of employability. Her research focuses on the development of employability, including identity and graduate work. Dawn is a National Senior Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow with the Higher Education Academy in the UK. She is currently leading research to embed a metacognitive model for employability with faculty and students in Australia, the UK, Europe and the US. Dawn is Vice-Chair Australia for the International Federation of National Teaching Fellows. Dawn has a discipline background in music and retains an active interest in arts-based research. Publications appear at Researchgate.